46 President's Address. 



merely " getting on," and to the sordid avarice of merely 

 making money, " instead of the gallant esprit de corps and 

 steadfast pride in raising and upholding our grand pro- 

 fession," he went on to define what a doctor in the true 

 sense ought to imply. " It means," he said, " a costly, and 

 though a very interesting, yet a very anxious and laborious 

 education ; it means, in all who are worthy of the 

 profession, enormous self-denial, earnest thought, truthful- 

 ness, integrity, purity of life, sympathy with human 

 suffering, unceasing labour, obedience to God's word." 

 And, he continues, " we must endeavour to influence all 

 who are about us to look upwards and onwards in the 

 highest sense, ^.e., in the hope of being an honour to their 

 calling and a blessing to their generation, and not in 

 damaging aim at self-aggrandisement." These were uo 

 empty words, but were exemplified in the life and character 

 of the man who wrote, but alas ! never uttered them. 



Of Dr Wilkinson some longer and better notice should 

 have been prepared, and yet, viewed in another light, it 

 may with equal truth be affirmed that such a man needs no 

 monument, for his deeds of benevolence, and the high tone 

 of character from which they proceeded, justify us in 

 adopting the trite quotation, " si monumentum quceris, 

 circumspice." 



During his student days he showed his love of botany 

 by joining our Society as a Resident Fellow in 1836, and 

 after returning to Manchester, he was one of our Non- 

 Eesident Fellows. Though I am not at present aware of 

 any contributions to our ■'' Transactions," yet, that he was 

 attached to the Biological Sciences, the above facts indicate, 

 when conjoined with the circumstance that he was an 

 Extraordinary Member of the Royal Physical Society 

 iiere. 



William Bruce Cunningham, Minister of the Free 

 Church, Prestonpans, is another of our Non-Resident 

 Fellows, whose loss we are called upon to mourn. Com- 

 bining, as he did, high intellectual gifts with an ardent love 

 of science, his name reflected honour on any Society with 

 which he was connected. 



He was born at Musselburgh in 1806, but was soon 



